Sneak peek of Hippocratic Foes by Krysta Dearson
The first time I met Eli Jerzeck, I was running late. Or at least I thought I was.
Driving way too fast down an empty two-lane country road, praying I wouldn’t hit a deer or squirrel, I nervously glanced at my clock again.
6:58 a.m.
Seeing as my interview was at 7 a.m. sharp, I was two minutes from kissing my chance at my top choice residency program goodbye.
Unease filled me as I continued to fly down the road. There were no curbs nor sidewalks, and a dense line of woods spanned either side of me. I’d only seen a few gravel driveways during the last two miles. This was an awfully rural area for a residency clinic.
“Your destination is on the right, 2600 Barstow Road,” my phone’s Australian accented AI, whom I’d named Ken, announced.
“Yes! I love you, Ken!” I cheered, finally spotting a break in the trees for the turn off. After making a hurried right, several partially full plastic water bottles, among other random items, slid across the floor of my passenger seat, slamming into the center console. A moment later, I heard two more mysterious loud thumps against my rear left passenger door.
Oooooh. Mystery solved! I knew I’d bought two mini gourds from the Farmer’s Market three weeks ago for Halloween. I was going nuts, thinking that I must’ve imagined buying them when I couldn’t find them. It made more sense that I’d put them in my backseat and then forgot about them, never to be found again.
I’d only driven a hundred feet before I came to an abrupt standstill. Dumbfounded, I gaped out the windshield at the large structure set back from the road.
This absolutely wasn’t the residency clinic.
Staring at me was a gigantic, ferocious badger. Correction: It was a building shaped like a gigantic badger. It stood two stories tall, the top half being a menacing badger head complete with red eyes and sharp teeth, while the ground level was the chest of the Badger meant to look furry by its dark cedar shake. The main entrance stood more or less at stomach level. On either side of the building were two tall pillars that spanned at least fifteen feet, appearing like two large arms with claw-tipped paws.
Now, in Wisconsin, this could be any number of buildings—a local bar, a campsite, or even a quirky tourist attraction.
But in this case, the clue came from a neon sign that read, Northern Exposure , along with other signs reading XXX and Tail dances every Friday night!
I wasn’t a medical doctor, at least not yet. I didn’t graduate from med school for another six months. Still, it didn’t take a medical doctor to surmise that ‘Northern Exposure’ was a euphemism for an establishment that exposed body parts that were decidedly not northward.
“You have arrived at your destination, 2600 Barstow Road.”
Oh, yeah, sure, Ken. Unless the residency moonlit as a strip club by night, this was not my destination.
This was not how my interview at UW Baraboo’s Family Medicine Residency was supposed to start. As a fourth-year med student, I’d been interviewing for residency programs the past few months, residency being the required training program all doctors must complete after med school in order to practice in their desired specialty. Baraboo Family Medicine Residency was my top choice on account of their well-known rural medicine fellowship. Plus, it was only two hours away from my hometown of Twin Rivers, Wisconsin. The program became popular last year, and with more popularity came more competition. Being late for this interview could make or break my chances. Dread filled me with each second that passed as I felt my dream of matching into residency here slip further away.
“ Arrived. 2600 Barstow Road ,” Ken piped up again, ignorantly cheerful.
“Oh, shut up, Ken!” I seethed, feverishly opening my email to check the clinic’s address from the interview itinerary.
Baraboo Family Medicine Residency Clinic, 2600 SW Barstow Road.
Did that say SW Barstow Road? I glanced at the address I’d entered into my car’s navigation. I hadn’t put in that cardinal direction in my original GPS.
Where (and I can’t stress this enough) THE FUCK was Southwest Barstow Road ?
Mapping the new address quickly, I was rerouted clear to the other side of town. For anyone taking notes, that was the side of town I’d originally entered. Meaning, if I weren’t such a scatter-brained idiot and got the address correct in the first place, I’d have already arrived at the interview.
Ten minutes ago.
On time.
But no. Instead, I was racing down the road, driving dangerously with one hand while looking up and calling the clinic with the other to explain I’d be late. After four rings, a recording came on. I hesitated to leave a voicemail after the beep because . . . What was I really going to say?
“ Hi! Millie Maxwell here. I’m running late for the interview. I typed the wrong address into my GPS, so I’m at some sort of wildlife strip club. I’ll be there in ten minutes after my next tail dance .”
Yeah, I think not.
Hanging up without leaving a message, I continued to speed down the road and gripped the wheel, pretending it was my own neck I was squeezing.
Being late was one of my biggest flaws, or, depending on how you looked at it, one of my biggest strengths. I was consistently late. Something inevitably got in my way, like not being able to find my keys. Or, forgetting the pair of pants I wanted to wear wasn’t clean. Or, staring at my closet to find a top, then thinking about how I needed to remove the tops that didn’t fit anymore, which led to a pile on the floor of four tops that didn’t fit until I realized that I was supposed to be getting dressed.
Taking a sharp left turn faster than I should’ve after a rolling stop, the two mini pumpkins made their presence known again on their trip to the other side of my car’s back seat, thumping loudly against the door.
It’s not that I, a 26-year-old-almost-doctor, was proud I lived this way.
I really did mean to leave on time and take the things from my car into my apartment. It just never seemed to happen. I’ve never been able to keep things tidy. From my childhood bedroom growing up to my school locker to my adult apartment, I was all cluttered chaos. Piles of stuff tend to accumulate when you can’t finish tasks. It was an Achilles’ Heel of ADHD.
As was being late—a girl in my anatomy lab once told me I'd never be late if I just planned to be early. What a novel thought, Karen. Let me guess: You also tell anxious people not to worry. Am I right?
I’d learned ways to treat my ADHD with behavioral therapy and medicine, but sometimes that feeling of failure still got to me. Being consistently late, not finishing my work on time, and being surrounded by clutter led to an inevitable feeling of being overwhelmed. And then the predictable self-loathing of ‘ why are you the way you are, Millie?’ naturally followed.
So, you can see why I was ringing my imaginary neck.
A few minutes later, I drove back into civilization, finding and parking in the clinic’s lot at ten past seven. I ran-walked up the stone steps of the three-story red brick building to find the doors locked. It was a testament to how truly stressed and oblivious I was that I didn’t notice the completely empty parking lot. After yanking on both doors a few times and confirming that they were indeed locked, I peered through the glass panes of the door.
No trace of movement or light.
I tried the door handle again for good measure, but it didn’t budge.
Puzzled, I turned around, and only then did I notice the empty parking lot.
Huh. No one seemed to be here.
Was I supposed to call someone when I got here? Was it possible someone was waiting here at seven and then left when I didn’t arrive on time? Or did I have the address wrong twice? That would be unusual, even for me.
I doubled back down the steps, deciding to follow a sidewalk around to the back of the building. A line of trees bordered the property. It was thicker the further I walked, making the area feel more secluded in the back than the front. As I rounded the corner, I saw what looked to be an employee entrance with a single door, an electronic badge reader, and an empty, yet smaller, parking lot. This door, too, was locked.
Confusion, anger, and self-loathing were my companions as I walked back to my car.
Pulling out my phone, I searched through my emails for all correspondence from the program. Stopping short at my car door, I saw it. There, in my inbox, was an unread message sent over two weeks ago, whose subject line read: Itinerary change for Nov 18 interview .
My stomach sank as I clicked on the email.
Ms. Maxwell,
Unfortunately, the time posted on your interview itinerary was incorrect. Please see the new details attached. We look forward to seeing you for your interview at our residency clinic on November 18th at 9:00 a.m. Please reach out if you have any questions.
Closing my eyes and exhaling in relief, my body sagged against the driver’s door. Seven in the morning had seemed early for an interview, but I was used to being in medical student mode. You don’t question things. If they had asked me to arrive at two in the morning, I’d have been there without questioning it. Still, my inadvertent mistake meant I wasn’t late. I was early.
Serendipitously early.
Maybe I even had time to drive and get a coffee and donut from the—I stopped that thought, mentally slapping some sense into myself. I had to stay on task. If I got hungry, I had a protein bar and emergency peanut butter M I had to give him that.
I ate another M it meant harsher conditions for hikers; and don't even get her started on what it meant to animal behavior.
Mitigating all of this meant that more duties landed on the Park Service. Already that morning, Sierra had monitored conditions for a congress of red-cheeked salamanders. She’d maintained a watering system that had been built for a rare species of elk. She’d checked in on new calves that had been born to one of the cows a few weeks earlier, in mid-June. And that barely scratched the surface of her official work.
"Dispatch to Betts four-one-five."
Her radio sounded abruptly—quick static followed by Rick’s commanding twang. Rick was efficient, precise and a very loud talker both on and off of the ham. She’d never asked what path had brought him to become a radio dispatcher, but he seemed born to do this job.
“Dispatch, go ahead.” She plucked her repeater off of her belt and pressed the side button to speak.
“Verify your position, four-one-five. Over.”
Following protocol, Sierra pressed the test button on her emergency beacon, which transmitted a signal Rick was meant to receive. A second after, she rattled off the coordinates from her GPS watch. Rick was meant to compare the beacon data with Sierra's spoken coordinates to measure the accuracy of the device.
“35.5628° N, 83.4985° W. You get the beacon? Over.”
“Verified,” Rick came back. Then, “The fire-warning level has risen from Moderate to High. Over."
"Ten-four,” she acknowledged evenly, even as her heart rate spiked.
“We still on for a drink on Friday?” Rick asked. “I need a second opinion on Kevin. Over.”
Sierra smirked. “I’m pretty sure your first opinion was correct. Over.”
Rick’s track record with men was even worse than hers. But he was a good friend and said track record had been the source of much bonding and commiseration.
“I’ll buy the drinks. And be careful out there. Over and out."
Her radio gave a final crackle before going silent. As she clipped it back on to her belt, she let loose the words she’d kept at bay.
"Motherfucking shit.”
Yeah. She cursed out loud, too. She usually saved bad language for giving the universe a piece of her mind when the 49ers fumbled the ball. She was from Sonoma County. She would resume her weekly TV cursing when the season opened in the fall.
Slowing her walk, she angled her face to bite down on the straw threaded through the shoulder strap of her pack. She'd be no help to anyone if she got heatstroke and collapsed in the woods. It meant she had to set aside her Superwoman complex and practice what she preached to hikers about twenty times a day: she had to pace herself and hydrate.
It might take her until after sunset, but she had to make all of her stops—the unofficial ones, too. Jake Stapleton wasn't supposed to be living on federal land. Jake Stapleton also wasn't bothering anybody. And she had it on good authority he had reason to hide and no better place to go. She hadn't actively hidden him, but she hadn’t reported him, either. What he had or hadn’t done didn't matter to the fact that he was in this forest. Conditions were dangerous, and he needed to know.
Sierra was still busy hypothesizing on Jake’s situation—wondering whether it was true that he’d taken his one way out. In town a while back, it had been the subject of no small speculation. Jake’s father, Mortar, was a known felon who’d done time on and off at the Riverbend Maximum Security Penitentiary in Davidson County. He’d been back in Green Valley for just under a year after time inside for trying to kidnap Ashley Winston.
To hear some people tell it, being born male and being born into the Wraiths meant you had no choice but to go in. And that, even if you left for a while, you were right back in the second you returned. To hear others tell it, there was an out, but only one: to leave Green Valley the day you came of age. No son of any Wraith rumored to have exited in this manner had ever been seen again.
Her musings were halted by the last interruption Sierra wanted: the faintest aroma of fire. It took her a minute to figure out the direction from which it came. On days this hot, she left her Bernese mountain dog, Everest, back at the ranger station. If Everest were with her now, she’d have long-since led Sierra in the direction of the fire.
Picking up to a jog, she hastened along her unmarked path. Most hikers who descended upon her little corner of the Appalachian Trail were well-trained. But there were always a few who ignored all safety and common sense. It didn’t take long for a small plume of smoke to come into view.
At least it's at a campsite .
Campsites had clearings, and clearings meant less dry vegetation to carry embers off in the summer wind. A recent series of suspicious blazes had everyone on high alert. There had been three of them—and they’d occurred under such strange circumstances that a fire set anywhere in her territory would warrant an astonishing amount of scrutiny.
Sierra approached the campground with caution. You never knew who you were gonna get. People drank, carried firearms, and did all manner of other prohibited things. It didn't help that she was a woman, let alone a Black woman, let alone one who was barely thirty. People weren’t used to authority coming wrapped in a package that looked like her.
“Hey, girls …” Sierra began in her sorority sister voice. She didn't like to call grown women “girls,” but “Hey, ladies” was what men around here opened with when they wanted to talk to you and your friends at the bar. Judging by the expensive camping gear Sierra had spotted from thirty paces, they weren’t local.
"Oh, hey!" the first woman bubbled, turning her attention away from the pot over the cooking fire. "Great day, huh?" She motioned to the sky with her spoon.
Sierra pegged them for nineteen or twenty. If their gear hadn’t been a dead giveaway, their accents certainly were.
“Wanna join us for lunch?”
"Thank you, no …” Sierra answered quickly. “I’m here to tell you that you can't cook with fire during the day. Do you have a permit?"
Sierra asked the question neutrally, curious to see how they’d play their cards. When people were genuinely clueless, she went easy. But when people knew the rules and didn’t follow them … well, that was a different story.
"Oh my gosh—we are so sorry!" The woman extended out the “oh” of her “so” in a way that reminded Sierra of how people talked back home.
"The guy we ran into at the bottom of the hill told us we didn't have to have one.” The second one crossed her arms as she chimed in. "He said we could pick one up at the ranger station.”
Sierra ran into this every day: hikers leading other hikers astray with misinformation.
"Fires are only permitted on some areas of the trail,” Sierra explained. “Part of why you have to get a fire permit is to confirm that you’ve read the full set of rules."
"That's not how the other ranger made it seem,” the second one challenged again.
“What other ranger?” Sierra narrowed her eyes.
“The guy ranger.” Her righteously indignant expression was replaced by a dreamy smile. “The hot one,” she clarified.
Her friend elbowed her.
“What? He was totally hot.”
“What did this ranger look like?” Sierra demanded. The parks were teeming with crews of scientists. Could be, one of them was giving hikers unauthorized advice.
"He had a uniform like yours, except blue …" The first one dug in her pocket. "Here. He took a selfie with us."
Sierra stepped forward with interest and craned her neck to get a glimpse. She scoffed in disdain when she saw it was Forrest. She scowled when she saw his smug, bearded smirk. He stood between the two women, both hands extended before him in a way that proved he’d held the phone for the selfie. His forearms weren’t visible, but his shoulders were. His shirt was snug-fitting—either that, or he just filled it out really nicely. Each of the two women cuffed a bicep so strong it dwarfed their hands.
Forrest Winters was, indeed, not a national park ranger. What he was, was a thorn in Sierra's side. The way he swung his big axe, fixed her with his chameleon gray eyes, and always talked about his jurisdiction had a way of breaking her concentration.
“He’s a fire marshal,” Sierra admitted. He was the fire marshal, really—the one responsible for determining the cause of all of those suspicious fires. During any normal season, he’d have come around only once in a blue moon to personally inspect fire conditions. Since the investigation had started, he’d been around all the damn time.
“Either way …” She pulled out her card. “I’m a park ranger and I’m telling you to put your fire out. If you have any questions, you can call the number on this card or visit Sugarlands, the ranger station in Gatlinburg. For now, I’ll have to stay to make sure you properly extinguish this fire.”
And Sierra did stay, seething and smoldering much like the embers of the ruined fire, still hot even after the initial spark had died. The two hikers—who weren’t at all happy—may not have been the only ones headed to the ranger station to file a grievance. Sierra would have her cupcake—maybe two—before the day was done. But first she’d find Forrest, who really ought to quit charming hikers and get back to doing his own job. Forrest Winters would hear where he could shove his fool claims of sweeping jurisdiction. Before the sun set, Sierra would give him a piece of her mind.